


As Water in the Desert

by Dizdayn



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-04
Updated: 2013-12-04
Packaged: 2018-01-03 10:09:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dizdayn/pseuds/Dizdayn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alik Al Bashir, the youngest son of the Pasha of Qadir, has been asked by his father to keep the young fosterling infidel out of his father's hair. The young fosterling turns out to be a magnificently bored Christian with a too charming smile. Alik has his hands full keeping Sebastian Gregaerius away from Naajarah's secrets, his father's arak, and the traditional place in court the Al Bashir family has kept for generations - Kaliphate Hashashin -  the silent exterminators of the state's political enemies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Water in the Desert

 

> "Praise be to Allah, the beneficent king, the creator of the universe, Lord of the three worlds, who set up the sky without pillars to hold it aloft, who stretched out the earth like a bed, and who filled the ocean like a bath. Lend me the art and the craft of she who outwitted a great king." - 1001 Nights

Umar Zulfikar bin Darzi reclined in the shallow steaming waters of his private bath, his chambers were quiet.  The sun painted the desert bright pinks and golds as it set.  His servants were dismissed, and he'd managed to talk the head of his private guard into remaining in barracks with the rest of the palace guard. The Kaliph's grand vizier lolled in perfumed water, his fat jowls jiggling in anticipation of the night's entertainment.  

 

Bin Darzi arrangement with the flesh peddler hadn't been arrived at cheaply. The dancer was married, or so Bin Darzi was told. A properly married woman allowed to parade around in such a garishly seductive getup? Ha!  No, the dancer was fair game, and Bin Darzi  outbid the rest of the club's patrons to have her. 

 

Allah help him, the woman was a prize - dark,  flashing eyes and thick curls immodestly revealed by the silken head wrap that hid her mouth and jaw. She was a bit wide in the waist, muscled, but she moved like silk in water, like a serpent, all sensuous curves and graceful hips during the Raqs Sharqi. Her performance was the hit of the evening, and Umar had to outbid many of his peers for her attentions.

 

The dancer, Hayfa, had protested, of course, claiming chastity. She claimed she was a good wife and only danced because her husband was away dealing with the Hankul threat far to the east.  She claimed family had fallen onto hard times.  Bin Darzi had had to explain to the woman that he had the power to hunt down her children or her husband and have them put to death before she folded.  However  his thread had silenced most of her complaints.

 

However Hayfa's requirements for an evening, he was promised to remember for the rest of his life, was a quiet place where she could perform for Umar without prying eyes. Her husband was jealous, she lamented, and she did not wish to incur his wrath.  

 

Umar wasn't wont to concede anything to a female, but fucking the dancer in front of his troops after she'd claimed to be a military wife would have damaged his standing with the Kaliph and his generals.

 

She was really too much trouble to go to just for a fuck, but she'd stirred something crazy within Umar, and he was bound and determined to have her.  And why not? Was he not the greatest of the Kaliph's Vizier - i - Azam? Had he not recently uncovered and pulled up by the root several dens of corruption and shameful misconduct in the Kaliphate, the largest right here in the Kaliph's own great palace. Did he not deserve a reward after all that poppy-tainted unpleasantness?

 

The jangle of coins in the open air bathing chamber and the sound of delicate feet on the tiles caused a surge of anticipation that sent blood rushing to Umar's cock. She'd come, and so would he.  He caught a scent of jasmine in the vapor filled room. He would not crane his neck like some green untested boy with his first wife.  The Vizier was much too experienced and worldly for that. She  stopped behind him, and the sound of a coin stitched garment hitting the worn tiles echoed through the room.  A set of painted toes appeared either side of Umar's reclining form.  Her long legs wound around him as she settled into the water. Her thighs were pressed against his backside, and she urged him open. He leaned back against muscled dancer's body as her left hand dipped beneath the surface of the bath. Right down to business then - Umar approved. 

 

Umar found his pleasure twice in her slow teasing hands, at points, firm and insistent on his member, at other's hesitant and shy, as if she really didn't know what she was about. She really was unbelievable. At the height of it, shouting his pleasure, he wondered if he could send someone to kill her husband and make a place for her in his own house.

 

Umar, as limp as the semen floating in the water, closed his eyes for an instant, patting the woman's thigh. A nap seemed like a fine thing, just to regain his strength when something soft dropped around his clavicle and slowly curled around his throat.  Her hair, Umar thought at first and tried to brush away the strands.  And then it began to cut off his air.

 

 Umar's eyes opened wide and he attempted to shout, scrabbling at the merciless ribbon of fire crushing his throat. He clawed at the double loop of thin cord but the garrote was already too tight to get more than a finger tip in between.  He looked to pull away, but the woman's thighs were clamped around his body like a vise. Her legs kept him in place no matter how hard he thrashed and tried to crush her back against the wall of the bath. She pulled harder, slawing back with a djinn's strength. Black spots danced before Umar's eyes, as he strugged in vain for precious oxygen.  Umar's murderer dragged back on the ends of the garrote, savagely crushing his trachea.  Umar's struggles waned and went limp. The last thing Umar heard as he died was a softly-pitched voice, smoky with a tint of humor in it.

 

"Truly, to Allah we belong, and truly, to Him we shall return."

* * *

 

The black station and its black clad rider thundered past the old Mosque of Hassan II that marked the center of Naajirah, and the citadel that housed the pasha and his troops. The mosque has fallen into disrepair, marking the changing of times in Naajirah and how unimportant the religion has become in the eyes of Naajirah's leader.

 

The  walls of Fort Naajirah sprawled across the highest hilltop and seemed to glow with reflected moonlight. The great walls stood strong in perfect repair, pristine white marble, veined in yellow stretched as wide as the hill itself.  The minarets of the great house, six in all, connected the main walls in mathematic perfection.  The rider galloped past them taking the well-manicured path around the castle to the rare gates, past the impassive eye of the night watchmen and into the stables.

 

The stable smelled of hay and horseflesh; soft wickers the restive movement of hooves provided a quiet nighttime noise. The rider slipped off the horse with jingle of metal.  A face surfaced out of the gloom gripping the reins and whispered something soft into the animal's sensitive black ears before it could rear in surprise. The face was dark and wizen, seen much of the sun and what went on beneath it but the eyes retained the twinkle of youthful amusement.

 

"A full night's work, eh, _pashazada_?" The old man walked stallion towards its stall, rubbing  the horse's neck to calm it. 

"Exceedingly. If you could find a treat for Aasif and tend to the scratch on his flank?" The rider stripped dropping cloak onto one of the trunks facing Aasif's stall.

One bushy grey eyebrow went up in disapproval as the old man checked at the cut on the animal's rear.  He didn't like to see horseflesh as magnificent as Aasif abused.

"Leave me alone, Kofi. If Aasif wasn't as quick and smart as a devil, we'd have both lost much more than a few drops of blood and bit of hair."

 

"Just as you say, O Silent and Thrice Veil'd Culler of Man, shall we expect a visit from the Kaliph's army in the morning?"

 

"They know nothing, I'd made it to the guard post still dressed as Hayfa. One of the guards tried to detain me for further... entertainment. Aasif blew past him before he could touch me. He got a lucky swing in. No one saw Hayfa enter the Vizier's chambers. No one saw her leave. It was as clean a get-away as even you, O Great Instructor, could make it."

 

Kofi snorted at that.  The rider contorted to reach back and unhook the metal embroidered bra, and the last of Hayfa the Dancer fell away, breasts and all.

 

"Your father waits to hear of your success in his chambers, Alik. He has news for you as well."

 

Alik pulled on the rough dressing gown, glad once again for warm linen lining his fruits instead of drafty silk. Kofi dampened a clean cloth and handed it to the Pasha's youngest son and motioned to Alik's eyes.

 

Alik quickly scrubbed of the thick kohl liner and lip rouge and pulled the extensions from his hair. He pulled on his sandals quickly as he took off into the castle interior. It didn't pay to keep the Pasha from his bed longer than absolutely necessary.

 

Ebrahim ibn Sajjad Al Bashir sat at an ornately carved escritoire. He pushed and pulled the sharpened reed across the page wondering, as he usually did, how it was that the script could make even something as base as a lease for new farms seem a work of art. He took each turn and curve of the letters as carefully as he could, letting the smell of ink and the motion of each letter sooth his worry.

 

The beauty of calligraphy pulled his mind away from his youngest boy and the dangerous art Ebrahim had gifted him then bid him employ on behalf of Qadir.  The sound of padded feet in the hallway outside of his chamber alerted Ebrahim to a presence. He recognized Alik's smooth gait, similar to Noor's light feet, not his own heavy tread or that of Hafiz, Ebrahim's successor.

 

"Enter."  The Pasha of Qadir did not look up from his writing.  The night air wafted sheer linen curtains and the scones that lit the room shed warm light in a pool around the pasha and glittered of the gold thread and rich embroidery of his night robes.  The room was silent for a time except for the scratching of the pen.

 

"Your enterprise for the evening was a success?"

 

"Yes, Father."

 

"Allah be praised."  Skritch, scratch, skritch, as if the penetration of the Kaliphate and the assassination of the Kaliph's Grand Vizier himself required no more  approbation than a well executed stroke of a pen.

 

 Alik stood still and clamped his lips closed around his gritted teeth.

 

"You no doubt remember the fool Christian who failed to carve out a bit of my lands for himself?"

 

Alik remembered.  Thinking Qadir weak because of the lack of conspicuous standing force, the Christians had made several forays into the country side. Once the full Christian force was engaged Ebrahim disabused them of that notion. Three hundred of Qadir's seven-thousand strong  h _ashshāshīn_  core made short work of the Christian's troops, and their leader was ransomed back to his people for an ungodly sum.

 

"His son shall be arriving tomorrow with the first of his concessions. He is to be treated as a fosterling. These soldiers of Jesus wield too much power these days to ignore them.  You will greet him and see him settled. He will also need to be watched. He does not know what we are about here. I would have it kept that way."

 

Ebrahim returned to his writing, dismissing Alik with a nod.  Alik turned to seek his own bed. Perhaps a bath first attended by a servant or two. Umar's filth needed to be scrubbed from his skin, and Alik knew just the man for the job.

 

"Consider tempering your usual lust of life, O Light of My Eyes, while the Christian is here." His father's voice stopped Alik in his tracks." These Christians are rather prudish and easily shocked.  We would not want him telling tales to his father that would get back to the Kaliph." 


End file.
